The invention relates to an electroacoustic underwater antenna having a reflector and having spring elements which fix the reflector on an antenna mount, in particular on a hull of a submarine, and act on the reflector close to its upper and lower longitudinal edges in the fitted position of the reflector.
A known linear underwater antenna (DE 38 34 669 A1) which is arranged on a hull of a submarine and is referred to as a flank array has a transducer arrangement, which is arranged at a distance from the hull and has a multiplicity of hydrophones which are at a distance from one another and are arranged horizontally in a row one behind the other along the hull when the underwater antenna is in the fitted position, and an insulating panel to provide a screening effect against sound emitted from the hull, which insulating panel is arranged behind the hydrophones in the sound incidence direction, is designed on the basis of the spring-and-mass principle and acts as poor sound reflector in the lower frequency range. The hydrophones are held on the insulating panel via a shell structure, and the insulating panel is attached by means of spring elements to a damping layer which absorbs bending waves and is connected to the hull. The transducer arrangement is mechanically protected by an envelope body which is attached to the hull. By having a streamlined design, the envelope body at the same time offers protection against flow noise. The acoustic characteristic impedance of the envelope body is approximately equal to that of the surrounding water, as a result of which the acoustic attenuation of sound passing through it and the reflection factor of the envelope body for incident sound waves are low. If the envelope body is in the form of a layer composite, as is known from DE 36 42 747 C2, this also prevents the emission of interference sound, which is caused by bending waves resulting from structure-borne sound and turbulence, from the envelope body to the transducer arrangement.
The invention is based on the object of designing a low-cost underwater antenna having only a small number of individual components, in particular for fitting to the hull of a submarine, in which the reflector to which the electronic transducer arrangement is fitted is at an adequate distance from the antenna mount, that is to say from the hull, is acoustically well decoupled from the hull and is largely resistant to shock loading.